In 2014 the US Congress reauthorized the Rehabilitation Act via the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). WIOA is the first legislative reform of the public workforce system in more than 15 years. It strengthens and improves our nation’s public workforce system and increases economic opportunities for individuals in the United States, especially youth and individuals with significant barriers to employment. In addition to increasing services to youth with disabilities, WIOA intends to support employer engagement, emphasize competitive integrated employment, enhance accountability, and promote collaboration between human services, education, and labor efforts. In short, WIOA heralded the most significant changes in VR structure and practice in a generation.

WIOA fundamentally changed the way VR programs are be measured and evaluated by the federal government. The new measures are as follows:

New WIOA Measures

1. Employment rate two quarters post program exit
2. Employment rate four quarters post program exit
3. Median earnings at two quarters post program exit
4. Credential attainment
5. Measurable skills gains
6. Employer satisfaction (this measure is calculated across all workforce system partners, not at the DVR level, and is not reported here for that reason)

These measures are calculated for VR as a whole in Vermont, and thus combines both DVR and DBVI cases. For more detail about the new WIOA measures, please see the Technical Assistance Circular. We believe the measures will support and encourage VR programs to focus on longer term outcomes for our consumers and help them build career pathways to higher wage employment. DVR is already looking at current practice and resource allocation through this lens.

Data collection needed to calculate these new measures began in 2017, hence it took a considerable amount of time before each measure could be reported, a baseline set such that targets could be negotiated with the federal Rehabilitation Services Administration. SFY 2021 was the first year in which all five WIOA Common Performance Measures could be calculated. The SFY 2021 results data shows Vermont VR consumers are achieving outcomes at a higher rate than the national average on all five performance measures.

The Employment Rate in 4th Quarter After Exit Measure

This measure calculates the share of individuals who exited the program during a year period (denominator) who, in the fourth quarter after the quarter in which they exited the program, showed any level of earnings (numerator). It became possible to calculate this measure in SFY 2020, since the lag time for data to be available is a full 6 quarters after the quarter of VR exit. The value reported for a given SFY represents the individuals who exited VR services in the calendar year that ended before the SFY started. Thus, the employment rate reported for SFY 2021 includes:

• individuals who exited VR services in CY 2019 (January - December 2019)
• evidence of earnings in the fourth quarter after exit, thus CY 2020 (January - December 2020).